Sugarcane Farming Muzaffarnagar Saharanpur Uttar Pradesh

Western Uttar Pradesh — principally the Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Shamli, Meerut, and Bijnor districts — is India most productive sugarcane belt, with the highest per-hectare yields among all sugarcane-growing states, supplying a dense network of 119 sugar mills that make UP the largest sugar producer in India, contributing approximately 40 percent of national sugar output. The UP sugarcane farmer cultivates the crop on alluvial Ganga-Yamuna Doab soils with canal irrigation, using the ratoon (regenerating stubble) cultivation system that allows three to four harvests from a single planting before replanting, and the crop cycle is managed around the mill crushing season from November to April when sugarcane must be delivered within 24 hours of cutting to prevent sucrose loss. UP sugarcane farmers face structural issues including high state-set Statutory Minimum Price that mills have historically paid late, creating farmer payment arrears that have reached thousands of crores at times, and this has driven repeated farmer agitation for MSP reform and mill privatisation or cooperative conversion. The Muzaffarnagar sugar mill belt is also the production zone for jaggery (gur) made in traditional kolhu (ox-driven press) and open-pan boiling units that supply gur to the national market.